Searching for Breaks

Summary: You already know that you can add breaks to your document, to force some sort of change to the text. If your document is quite long, finding these breaks can be a chore unless you know how to use Find and Replace to locate these special characters. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, and Word 2003.)

Word allows you to search not just for text, but also for special characters that normally do not print. There may be times when you want to search for page, section, or column breaks. To do this, follow these steps:

Choose Find from the Edit menu or press Ctrl+F. Word displays the Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
In the Find What box, enter the text for which you want to search. To search for a page break enter ^m. To search for a section break, enter ^b. To search for a column break, enter ^n. Note that it is important to use lowercase characters. You can also select these and other types of special characters by clicking on the Special button. (You may need to click on the More button first.)
Set other searching parameters, as desired.
Click on Find Next.

Tip #1109 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

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Searching for Breaks